


Children of Gods, Children of Men

by vividwings



Series: Ars De Esse Parenti [1]
Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-06
Updated: 2013-03-29
Packaged: 2017-12-04 10:39:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/709836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vividwings/pseuds/vividwings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of drabbles based on my series of what-if paintings depicting the daughters of the Primarchs. It follows them in different times and places, before, during, and after the Horus Heresy. A family torn apart, for all that it was hardly whole to begin with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Angron

**Author's Note:**

> If you are interested, my paintings and drawings of the Primarch's Daughters can be found at my deviantart page: http://vividwings.deviantart.com/ . Others have written fanfiction for the paintings before and I have no problem with anyone re-interpreting, using, abusing or otherwise employing the characters in any form they want. If you do, I'd love for you to link me to it!

She tries not to let him see how much it hurts. Her eye is swollen and she can barely see out of it, but his breathing is slowing and his heart rate is dropping, and she needs to be there. After the anger comes guilt, and then more anger. 

“I’m fine, father.” She says softly, laying one gentle hand on his shoulder. “Kharn will be fine, too. It isn’t your fault. Neither of us would ever blame you.” Her voice is slow and steady and calm. It does not waver and it doesn’t show the pain. She will ice it later, like she always does, and visit Kharn in the infirmary. Sometimes they switch places, and she is the one with a crushed cheekbone or broken ribs. But he stands between them often now, because he can take a beating better than her. 

“It’s not fine.” He growls out.

“It is. There’s no harm done. It will heal soon.” She almost convinces herself, even as she braces to take another hit if this triggers his rage. It does not, not this time. 

“… All right, child.” 

“Here are those slates from the Admiral. I’ve attached a summary for you, so you don’t have to read all of it.” She slides back into her role as assistant and helper without much effort. The black eye will heal, it’s true. Someday he’ll feel better. 

Someday everything will be all right.


	2. Leman Russ

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Be careful what you wish for.

“To my grandfather, the Emperor! To life! To the serfs who brew this stuff!” She tosses back her red hair and laughs freely. Her gray eyes sparkle in the light of the torches, and the men cheer with her. It is a deep bass rumble of a cheer, the sort only the Astartes can make. The laughs of her ladies, the Valkyries she calls them, are like bells in comparison, bright and high. 

Truly, today is a good day. She wears a gown in the style of her father’s homeworld, though she was born on the Crusade fleet years after he left the frozen plains of Fenris behind. The materials are all imperial majesty, though, silk from Hesperia and woven gold trim from Medina. It is a far cry from the carapace armor and encrusted blood she’s been wearing for months. 

The fighting was brutal and her heart feels a pang for those lost, among her brothers and her ladies. It took hours to get the blood out from under her nails and the mud from her hair when the city was made compliant. That life was worlds away now as she stands amidst the celebrations of yet another success.

All the mud and fighting was worth it, to stand in the hall with her brothers and drink to victory, to glory, to the Imperium. There will be singing later, perhaps some dancing if they are all truly drunk. There is a desperation in their revelry that cannot be shaken. Perhaps it is because they only barely escaped the clutches of death themselves, or perhaps it is because they know it cannot last. This Crusade must end someday, and what glory is there in peace?

She raises her glass again. "May this never end, a victory forever and ever!"


	3. Horus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The princess in the tower.

She stands at the window of her gloriously appointed rooms, in the highest tower of the fortress. They are decorated in brass and black, red and yellow, colors that look good against her tan complexion and dark, lustrous hair. She looks out over the fortress, the training yards, the extensive barracks and grounds, and feels the hunger grow in her chest. 

She wants more. 

This planet, this army, it is not enough, it will never be enough. There is an emptiness in her heart that can never be filled, but by the Gods of Chaos, she will try until the day she breathes her last. Thousands of years she has endured, preserved by warp magic and genetics alike, as young and beautiful as she was at the Heresy. She barely notices her own appearance anymore. This body is her prison and her sanctuary, a tool that she must take care of. There were moments of living here and there, but for the most part she simply exists. 

She used to think herself beautiful. It was one of her joys when she was young, to be lovely and wanted. Men would trip over themselves to be with her, the firstborn princess of the Crusade Fleet. People remarked that she looked the part, possessing her father’s charisma and her mother’s beauty. She pushes aside the thoughts of her mother, dead in the Heresy like so many others. Unbidden, an image of her mother’s face swam into her mind, green eyes and warm smiles and an embrace that made the world safe. She closes her eyes with a snarl. 

The price of progress. 

Her father was part of the price, and most of her uncles, too. She remembers some of them better than others. Some spent years of the Crusade alongside her father, others she barely met once. The survivors of those that followed the Warmaster she knew too well. Far too well in some cases. If she never had to deal with Fulgrim’s leering again she would be happy. No, not happy. Never happy. Less annoyed, maybe. Happiness was as alien to her as peace. 

She sighs and looks at the timepiece on the wall. Ezekyle was supposed to be here by now, but he liked to keep her waiting. A show of power. Let him play his games, she thought, he’ll come eventually. He couldn’t stay away, no more than she could stay away from him. They hated each other, ill matched in all ways save one. They meet now and again, supposedly to plan the next Black Crusade. They bicker and fight and shout, throwing insults at each other whose edges are long-dulled with use but still have a fierce bite. They carry out the same dance until at last the argument reaches its inevitable conclusion. 

She wonders, sometimes, if they could do without the intricate lead up. They both know what’s going to happen when they see each other. They both know how it ends. Their hunger would allow nothing else. 

They are both so, so hungry.


	4. Fulgrim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A restlessness approaching hysteria.

“Do you want some more wine?” Lucius asks, his voice deep and smooth. 

“I shouldn’t.” She says, a mischievous smile on her face as she holds out her glass. 

“We’ve already done many things we shouldn’t.” He points out. His beautiful eyes darken as they trace over her form. She knows what that means for a man, but not for an Astartes. Do they see beauty like men do? They do not seem to become fools for it, but it would take a blind man not to notice her. Her body is only obscured by a dress as white as her hair and as tight as her skin. She wonders what would happen if she were to take it off and the thrill of the taboo runs through her, a whisper in the back of her mind urging her on. 

“You have a point.” The night had started at a party thrown by one of the Remembrancers. It was a nice party, everyone who was anyone in the civilian life of the fleet was there alongside a number of the military commanders. She had shocked everyone by showing up with an Astartes on her arm like an exotic, oversized accessory. The memory made her laugh into her goblet. Their faces, aghast and surprised and terribly, terribly curious were worth the lecture she would get from her father. He had bee more lax of late, she mused, so perhaps he will not be too strict. 

They’d ditched the party later in the night to go to someone’s room, she’d never gotten her name. But it was a smaller, more intimate gathering. Lucius could be charming when he wanted to be. The hostess offered everyone refreshments. Unlike the ones at the last party, these had a nice kick. Lucius metabolized it in minutes, but she wasn’t a space marine. Her pupils dilated and she leaned on Lucius’s arm. When no one was looking, she ran her fingers down the perfectly smooth skin. 

Oh, that distracted him. He nearly jumped out of his skin. She laughed and did it again, and he looked angry. But he was so beautiful when he was angry. 

He was always beautiful. 

The party went on, and she drank and drank some more, always leaning on her escort. He relaxed and laughed with her now. His arm found its way around her waist and stayed there. He dwarfed her, with his massive height and muscles, but somehow they made a fitting pair, or so she thought when she looked in the mirror. It was something in the shape of their faces, their dark eyes. 

When they tumbled onto the bed in her room sometime near the spaceship’s “dawn”, they were laughing and she at least was still thoroughly intoxicated. They talked of art and culture and the nature of perfection, and she ran her hands over the plush velvet of the couch, smiling a secret smile and drinking her wine. His smile told her he shared the secret. 

Her head spins as she sips this new goblet of wine, a fresh white wine from the great greenhouses of Terra. She feels uneasy and restless in her own skin. There is something about the night that bothered her. It is a feeling of being constrained, controlled, hemmed in. She wants to run as fast as she can until she is sweating and gasping for breath. She wants to punch something until her arms ache. She wants to do what until now she feels that she has only ever watched. The nervous energy courses through her and drives her slowly mad as she sits on the couch, her eyes fixed on Lucius’s face. 

His eyes, however, wander her body, the full curves of her hips and the gentle swell of her breasts above the neckline of her dress. The white dress is only a slightly colder tone than her skin. It’s as pale as her fathers, and somehow he doesn’t mind the resemblance. He thinks he likes it, sending a thrill of shame and excitement through him. Why shouldn’t he think his primarch the ideal in all things, even in beauty? 

The long pause in conversation stretches taut between them. She licks her lips. He narrows his eyes. The beat of her own heart in her chest nearly deafens her and the wine makes everything except him blurred and unreal. Suddenly, he stands from his chair and sits on the couch next to her. There is uncertainty in his eyes, but not in his movements. Perhaps years of combat have taught him decisiveness even in the face of doubt. 

His arms smoothly wrap around her languid form. She presses herself forward against his chest with a brief exhale of breath. This, this is what she needs, this is what will calm her nerves and spend the energy that coils inside her. She turns her face up to his, those black eyes wide in her flushed face. With a growl he grasps her head in her hands and presses his lips against hers. He is not gentle, but neither is she, pulling and biting with her sharp little teeth. His fingers delve into her wavy white hair and pull her away when she draws blood. Her unhappy whimper is enough to drive him back into her embrace. 

There is a song in their ears, so quiet that it can only just be heard over their frantic breathing and the zip of her dress coming undone. It is like the beat of the temple but more, better. It is theirs now, the beat of their hearts against each other in moment after moment of desperate desire and fumbling ecstasy. 

His hands slide over her skin and every time he closes his eyes he sees his Primarch’s face, until hers and her father’s blend together in one beautiful visage. Every gasp and moan he wrings out of her with his hands and his tongue feels like a victory.  
Beneath him, she is lost in the sensation of it. It could be anyone, but there is something better about an Astartes, something taboo and wrong and delightful. His hands are calloused against her petal-smooth skin and it’s exactly what she wants. How could she want less than this? 

How could anyone want more? 

There is always more, says the voice in her mind. 

Always and forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little more adult than some of the previous chapters, but I felt it was merited. Slaanesh does not do anything in moderation, after all. Next up may be the Night Haunter's or Alpharius/Omegon


	5. Konrad Curze

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Do not shine a light in the darkness, because you might prefer to never know what lies there.

The man, a remembrancer of the fleet, seems to huddle in the chair provided for him. He is pale and sweating, and he only barely remembers to jot down notes now and then.

“A beauty gave herself to my father, the story goes, to thank him for saving her from the monsters. One wonders if that is the whole of the story, but it is gone and past now, the truth hidden and obscured because it is unpalatable to this fledgling Imperium. It is a mighty edifice, built on the shakiest of foundations: the personal charisma of one man, however inhuman he may be.” She stands before him, tall and pale and slender, her proportions elongated and distorted enough to be disturbing. Her eyes are midnight blue, large enough to drown in, and they peer at him with interest over the edge of her dark blue veil. 

“But there is cleansing in the truth. The truth leaves a clean wound, lies fester. Lies hid the necessary evils of the Crusade from the greater population of the Imperium, but never from my Grandfather. He knew. Oh, he knew. He feigned ignorance when the so-called excesses of my father and brothers came to light, because to do otherwise would be to acknowledge the truth about war and let fall all those pleasant falsehoods that allow that prattling aristocracy on Terra to feel good about themselves while they fund a war. A war!” She scoffs, tossing her long black hair out of her face. 

“War is misery and pain. There is nothing gentle or uplifting or enlightening about the process of war. It is a bloody terrible business, but we take pride in our jobs here. We don’t pretend to be anything other than what we are. We are monsters, and my grandfather would have us pretend to be anything else.” She smirks behind the veil, a crinkling around her eyes. 

“You wonder how I hide my face? Is that not a lie? It is. But it is a lie my grandfather wished of me, because I was not as photogenic as Athyrea or Sanguinius’s brats. Those twins are insufferable!” She seizes a glass and throws it at the wall. The remembrancer flinches away from the shards. “Maybe they wouldn’t be so sanctimonious if they knew what it was like to be ugly."

“But the time for lies is over. Let the truth inspire fear that lies could not.” She grasps the edge of the veil with one hand, her eyes smiling. “You shall be the first witness. Describe, in your most patriotic tones, what you see here. We are all children of the Emperor here, even after all this.” 

She ripped the veil from her lower face and smiled a true smile. The remembrancer stares at her, his mouth agape, for several seconds before he starts to scream and scramble away from her, his pen and notebook falling to the floor. 

“All that is in us, can be found in Him, even this. Even me. Remember that.”


	6. Roboute Guilliman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We carry the burdens of those who came before us.

Another sob tears its way out of Gloria’s throat. Her makeup, carefully applied for the many floating cameras that were at the ceremony transferring power to the First Captain of the Ultramarines ‘For the duration’, is running down her face and onto the arms of her dress. Black trimmed in Ultramarine blue with an undergown of white, mourning and hope and patriotism all together in one. She even has on the stupid tiara. Sapphires and diamonds set in silver, nearly too large for her head and pinned in place to her complicated updo to keep it from shifting. 

“It will be all right, dear, they will find a cure for him eventually.” Her mother puts her arms around the young woman’s shaking shoulders. She is an older woman in gray and blue, with white hair at her temples and the arched patrician nose of the nobility of Ultramar. Her eyes are red but there were no tears on her face. Perhaps she ran out of tears. 

“It was daemon poison. They told me it would take a miracle to fix him and the Imperium doesn’t get miracles!” She sobs. “We threw away our gods and our prayers long ago. For what? The Imperial truth? How can that save father?”

“It was a poor choice of words on the Magos’s part, I’ll give you that. You should not speak of your grandfather’s work so rudely, you know what the miracles of ‘gods’ wrought during the Rebellion. Still, new advances are made in technology every day-“

“Not during the Rebellion.” Gloria interrupts her. “They were pumping out tanks and guns and titans, not researching medicine. They had their hands full keeping their forge worlds fed with iron and adamantium.”

“True, but the war is winding down. The next stage of the Imperium is begun, rebuilding and re-establishing, and that includes getting your father back on his feet.” Tatiana says softly. “We must hold the Kingdom of Ultramar safe and sound for your father’s return. He will return, one day. We will find a way to heal him.”

“How? We can’t heal grandfather either. I asked and the Captain of his guard said I couldn’t see him, and he didn’t know when he would be better.” Her sky-blue eyes are wide and uncertain. The foundation upon which her world was built had cracked and shifted beneath her feet. “He looked like he’d lost all hope.”

“No one knows much of anything about your grandfather, my dear.” Her mother remarks with a sad smile. “If anyone can recover from his injuries, he can. He is beyond the understanding of almost everyone in the galaxy, and we must have faith that he knows what he was doing when he gave the instructions to Malcador and the Captain of the Custodes.”

“Dad never understood him, either.” Gloria points out, tears welling in her eyes. “No one can understand him, not even his sons.”

“Perhaps. I think that your father saw things in him that he didn’t share with the rest of us. He might have told you when you were older.” She strokes her daughter’s hair, teasing out the tangles from the wind.

“He won’t have the chance now.” She says bleakly. 

“You can’t afford to think that way. You are a princess and princesses have to have hope for their people, even when they have none for themselves.” Her mother says firmly. 

“I can’t keep doing this, I want to go with-“ 

“You can keep doing this. You will guide this kingdom into peace and prosperity. You will show the bravest face a thirteen year old has ever shown. Your sister has sworn her vengeance against Fulgrim and you cannot follow her where she goes.” Her mother’s voice is tight with grief. 

“I want to kill them all.” Gloria’s voice is muffled in her arms. Her mother gently removes the tiara and sets it on the bedside table. 

“So do I. But we all have our parts to play. Now look at me, my dear.” As bidden, Gloria looks up. Her face is streaked and stained still, her eyes red. With tender care her mother dabs away her tears and her makeup. The skin underneath is smooth with youth and the preternatural vitality of the primarchs. 

“I don’t want to go to the ceremony tonight. I don’t want to be seen anymore.”

“Being royalty means doing many things you don’t want to. You will be going. You are the next generation, the hope for the future.” She holds her daughter’s face in her hands.

“My sister would have been better at this.” She says quietly. 

“Your sister was a leader of war, of conquest and compliance. She could inspire men to put themselves through hell to get to the other side. But she would have balked at trading pleasantries and enduring the endless condolences from politicians who have never held a sword in their lives. She probably would have assaulted someone. You will be a leader in peace as she is a leader in war. You will guard the home front and ensure that there is something to come back to when she is done, because that is not at all certain. Everything is in flux. Our family must be strong and stalwart in the face of fear and doubt.” 

Gloria doesn’t look up for a long time. 

“Do this for your father. He needs you. I can’t be what you are. In the end, I was only queen of Ultramar and a mortal woman. You are more than that. You are one of the last heirs to the legacy of the Primarchs, of the Emperor, on this side of the battlefield.”

Gloria nods, slowly. “For father, then.”

She kisses her daughter’s forehead. “He’s proud of you. He's always been proud of you.”


	7. Rogal Dorn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The apple does not always fall close to the tree.

There was fighting in the next room. Constance hated when they fought, but they fought more and more lately, until that was most of what they did together. She remembered a time before, when everything was better and mother and father loved each other very much. They used to walk together, hand in hand, and damn anyone who laughed at how different they were. He was tall and broad, with short-cropped hair and a face as stern and hard as the walls of the Phalanx. She was a willowy beauty, with long wheat-colored hair now fading into gray at the temples. Her face was barely touched by lines, smooth from juvenat treatments that maintained her health. They would talk in low voices in the halls of the Phalanx, and sometimes even the stoic soldiers of his legion would smile to see them pass.

But now they were fighting, and did not come to the others' chamber anymore, except to talk and talk always turned into fights. The fights were about her, she knew, since her father hadn't spoken to her since... since the Sigillate had spoken to him a week ago. She was not part of that conversation, but she was not part of many things and it did not bother her. Still, she wished she knew why they were fighting and what she could do to stop it. It was her fault, she was bad. She must be bad.

“She's your daughter! How can you treat her like this? You won't even look at her!” Her mother's voice was appalled, angry, with the edge of despair that comes from saying words often and never having them heard.

“Is it not enough that I will lie for her? That I agreed to Malcador's advice? I am lying, lying to my Legion, my people, my brothers- is that not enough?” His voice was not truly quiet, but he could shout much, much louder. “She is touched by-”

“It does not matter, she is our daughter, she is a child, and she is not at fault here! There is none of that in my side of the family, you know that-”

“What are you insinuating?” Her father replied, his voice low and dangerous.

“Your father is the greatest psyker the galaxy has ever seen, and you wonder why our daughter reads thoughts.” She could see her mother in her mind, her sharp chin held high in defiance of her father. Perhaps she was seeing her, truly, through her father’s eyes. “You wonder why our daughter is a psyker.”

Dorn growled. He did not like that word, it seemed. “But I am not.”

“The trait can be recessive.” Her voice lowered, pleading. “Please, just... I’m asking you, begging you, to treat her like you always have. She asks me if she’s done anything wrong, if there’s anything she can do to make it up to you, and I have no answers for her. She’s eight years old, love, she doesn’t understand. All she wants to do is make you happy. She would do anything to make you happy.”

He sighed, a deep rumbling sound. “I never lie. I never cover up anything. All it does is lead to more misery later, when it comes out. The truth purifies.”

“I know.” Cloth rustled and there were footsteps, light, her mother’s. After a painfully stretched moment, the creaking of ceramite joints followed. They were embracing, she knew the sound. Maybe, just maybe, everything would be all right? “I know, my love, but the truth can also burn.”

“Maybe... maybe you are right. But it hurts, it hurts to look at her, and know what she is and what could happen to her.” She could barely hear his voice through the door. “Without her even trying or knowing. Her mind is a gateway for the Imperium’s enemies. What about the Sisters? Could we-”

“We could get one as a bodyguard for her, but she won’t like it. They disturb normal people, and psykers feel it keenly. But I will contact Malcador and make the arrangements.” Her voice was soft but the relief in it, the sheer relief hurt to listen to. Had her mother really been that worried?

What did she do wrong?

She curled up into a ball outside the door. The talking stopped, and she froze. The footfalls of her father’s power armor were like the drumbeat of impending doom. She was in so much trouble. The door creaked open.

“Sweetheart...” Her mother looked down at her from her father’s shadow. She leaned down and helped her daughter to her feet, holding her close. “We love you. No matter what. Things are just going to be a bit harder from now on.” She glanced up in time to see her mother’s gaze rest on her father, holding it until the giant of a man leaned down and embraced them both.

“You can still be my little warrior.” He said gruffly. He was not a very good liar. There was hesitation in his movements, his words. He was making an effort, which was more than before, but she felt the loss of his regard keenly, a hole in her heart that yearned for him to tussle her hair, to take her to see the legion drilling in the yard.

She did not think he would do those things again, but for now, the cold, awkward embrace of ceramite was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contance, Dorn's daughter, is not the only psyker among her cousins, but the others were more predictable. I decided one of the primarchs needed to get an unpleasant surprise. And yes, I did switch tenses for this, it was intentional. I've got a follow-up piece to this in the present tense in the works.


End file.
